Soul Cage
by Amberdreams
Summary: Warnings: surreal, hallucinations, swearing. Summary: Season 10, no spoilers. Is it any wonder that Sam is messed up, Dean is messed up and nothing feels right? They finish a case only to find Sam is trapped inside an invisible cage in the middle of their motel room. Dean can see into the cage, but Sam can't see out.


**Title**: Soul Cage

**Rating**: R

**Warnings**: surreal, hallucinations, swearing

**Summary**: Set at an unspecified time during Season 10. After Sam's been re-souled and after Cas broke down his wall, after Dean and Castiel's time in Purgatory, after Amelia and the dog, after Benny, after rescuing Bobby's soul from Hell. After Sam's angel possession has been resolved to no one's satisfaction and Dean is demonless but still Marked, is it any wonder that Sam is messed up, Dean is messed up and nothing feels right?

They finish a case only to find Sam is trapped inside an invisible cage in the middle of their motel room. Dean can see into the cage, but Sam can't see out. Unable to communicate, somehow they have to find a way to free Sam from this prison.

Written for the **sammybigbang** on Live Journal. There is ART for this fic, guys, and it's fabulous. Check it out on my journal (take out the spaces and put . for dot) amberdreams dot livejournal dot com / 293801 dot html

**Acknowledgements**: A massive thank you to etrix, caranfindel and vyperdd for sterling beta jobs! etrix in particular whipped my passive ungrammatical bum into line and thoroughly de-Britishized me, so any remaining errors are all mine. Lyrics are from Sting's _The Soul Cages_, and Imagine Dragon's _Nothing Left to Say_. The Jack a Nory rhyme is traditional.

* * *

_I'll tell you a story_

_About Jack a Nory;_

_And now my story's begun;_

_I'll tell you another_

_Of Jack and his brother,_

_And now my story is done._

Tell us a story, Jack a Nory…

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

The first thing you have to understand about the Winchester brothers is that they are unusual. Like most siblings, Sam and Dean fight and argue, even though they love each other. Unlike most brothers, the Winchesters have done terrible things to each other, and had terrible things done to them. They are broken souls, both of them, but somehow when they are together they reinforce each other just enough to make their shattered pieces whole.

Their bond is stronger than gravity, its intensity outweighs the pull of a black hole. So, even though sometimes, one or the other of them tries to leave, they always find themselves drawn back in. Their love is an irresistible force, it surrounds them like the air they breathe and is just as essential for keeping them alive.

What was that? Oh yes, the second thing you have to understand.

Their story ain't no fairytale.

* * *

Below my soul I feel an engine  
Collapsing as it sees the pain  
If I could only shut it out

Dean just wanted to keep working. It wasn't much to ask, surely? To keep moving, to keep saving people, to keep…

"…running away from whatever the Mark is doing to you, and that's not going to help us find a way to get rid of it, is it?" Sam was getting agitated, Dean could hear it in the way his brother's voice rose, and his big hands flapped about like a demented sea lion, but Dean didn't have the energy to fix it.

"Sam," Dean said. He itched to get back in the Impala, to feel the vibrations of her engine through the steering wheel and watch the blacktop stretching out in front of him – endless, empty, safe. He could see the new lines weariness had drawn on Sam's face, and he understood why Sam wanted to rest up one more night here in Nusquam, Sam's urge to make certain – dot all the whatevers, cross the all other things – but Dean's veins were alight and his skin pricked with static and his engine revved like the Mark was pressing his pedal to the metal while the handbrake was still on and he just needed to…

He blinked as the motel room door slammed shut. Sam had disappeared into the everlasting Montana rain.

Goddamn it.

Dean hated fucking rain.

So much so he thought he might have been a cat in a previous life. Whatever.

After hours wandering the streets of Nusquam, Montana in persistently pouring rain, Dean finally admitted defeat in his search for Sam and returned reluctantly to their Motel room. It was stupid to worry. It had been a minor spat in the Winchester scheme of things, and Sam was old enough (and formidable enough) to look after himself.

Dean unlocked the door with the big-ass old-fashioned key, and wouldn't you fucking know it? Sam was right there, half naked with just a too-small motel towel round his waist. Probably used all the hot water, too. His brother stood in the middle of their badly-lit room with his back to the door, ignoring Dean.

Dean felt a rush of annoyance. He'd been an idiot to worry in the first place, let alone spend all that time fretting and pounding the wet sidewalks of this bum-fuck town in the middle of nowhere searching for a brother who'd probably returned to the room the moment Dean set out to search for him.

Dean kicked the door shut, ready to tear his errant brother a new one, then frowned as Sam just carried on staring at nothing, apparently oblivious to Dean's noisy arrival.

"Fuck, Sam. Where the hell've you been?"

Nothing. No reaction at all.

Damn. Guess Sam was still pissed then.

He hesitated, frowning. Even if Sam was still mad enough about their stupid argument to ignore him - and fuck, Dean was mad enough at Sam that he wavered between punching him and hugging him - even so Dean couldn't help feeling relief, too. It was hard-wired into him, in spite of everything. Sam was safe and that was all that mattered. Sometimes Dean hated that he couldn't escape his prime directive, even while he realized it was the only thing that kept him functioning when the ever-present, teeth-jarring buzz from the Mark kept him awake at night. So he couldn't stop himself reaching forward, eager to reinforce the visual of Sam's presence with a touch.

His eyes widened in surprise when he was brought up short. His outstretched fingers collided with a cold, flat surface instead of the warm, bare shoulder he had been aiming for.

An invisible, smooth barrier that should not have been there.

The shock of it ran up his arm, jarring his own shoulder and setting his nerves jangling.

Sam still hadn't moved or reacted to Dean's presence in any way, though Dean could see that his brother was awake and alert. He just seemed totally engrossed in something Dean couldn't see, something apparently in mid-air in front of Sam's face.

Anxiety pumped through Dean's veins even while the Mark kept his heart from beating too fast, reducing the flow of adrenaline round his body. Dean missed its effects. Adrenaline used to give his fear a physical outlet, whereas now it had nowhere to go.

Dean put his hand out in front of him and moved it through the air until once again it hit that smooth, cold resistance. He pressed his palm flat against the invisible barrier and carefully slid his hand across it, trying to find its edges. Whatever it was, it stretched up as high as he could reach and all the way down to the somewhat bilious-colored carpet. Slowly standing up again, he moved around to where Sam was standing, trailing his fingertips behind him, never losing contact with the barrier that separated them.

There were no gaps. No discernible cracks or openings or weaknesses he could find. A little bit like the wall he'd built round himself since Sam had 'cured' him. He allowed that thought to slip away, trickling like rainwater into the heart of him, where the dark underground pool of Unimportant Things Best Left Undisturbed lived. He barely noticed it go.

Dean stopped right in front of Sam's face without the slightest flicker from his brother to show that Sam was aware of Dean's presence.

Whatever this thing was, _Sam_ couldn't see through it.

"Sam?" Dean tried speaking normally – nothing. He banged his fist against the surface right in front of Sam's face and shouted. "Sammy!"

His voice seemed to bounce off the barrier exactly as his fist did. Whatever it was, it repelled both sound and impact completely.

Dean was running out of ideas when Sam raised his hand inside the invisible cage and placed his palm flat against the inner surface, just as Dean had done moments before.

For a brief moment, Dean felt a surge of hope – perhaps Sam could see him after all? He watched Sam's mouth moving as if he was speaking, but Dean could hear nothing coming from inside Sam's box. The only sounds were the traffic from outside their room, the buzzing from the aging fluorescent light over the kitchenette sink, and the over-loud ticking of the clock on the wall.

Although he was now fairly certain that Sam couldn't see him, Dean hesitated a little before he raised his own hand to slowly place his palm over Sam's. This felt too intimate, and his thoughts skittered around his head like frightened mice, evading, distracting.

This was totally a parody of Romeo and Juliet's dance at the Capulet's ball with Dean as Leonardo de Caprio and Sammy as that Claire Daines chick. Not that Dean ever watched that Shakespeare shit. Obviously. It had just been on, you know, while Lisa watched it; though he'd had to admit, Claire Danes was hot with her little wings and… Oh my god! He had a wing fixation.

Where their two hands mirrored each other, Dean felt the barrier between them momentarily lose its chill, and for a fleeting moment, lines of blue-white light flashed into existence, shaping an intricate, almost familiar design. A nanosecond later, a force - akin to a massive electric shock - ran down Dean's arm. He convulsed and flew ten yards backwards as if thrown by a demon. His back crashed into the flimsy table by the window, smashing it to pieces before he kind of bounced sideways into the metal radiator. His forehead rebounded with an unpleasant crack.

Breath left him along with a grunt of pain, and fuck that hurt. A lot. He had just enough time to be surprised at how much before he blacked out.

* * *

_If you could only save me  
I'm drowning in the waters of my soul_

Sam pulled his hand back and watched the glacier-blue symbol fade back to the same thin black lines as all the rest.

Odd. None of the other symbols had lit up like that when he'd touched them. He pursed his lips and tried again. Placing his hand over the same symbol he waited for the light, but nothing happened. No luminescence, no warmth. Maybe it was a one-time only thing, he mused. Touch it once and you burnt it out.

Which was, now he came to think of it, a bit worrying. Setting the correct symbols alight might be the key, and there might be a finite number of combinations that could get him out of this predicament. Great. He could've already destroyed a symbol he needed.

He took a step back and folded his arms - as if that would stop them acting independently of his brain and touching stuff they shouldn't. He scanned his prison for the umpteenth time since he'd found himself inside this strange giant hex box.

After he'd stormed out of their motel room leaving Dean in mid-sentence, it hadn't taken Sam long to calm himself down. A half hour over a cappuccino, followed by another half hour browsing the dusty shelves in the small town's rather charming independent bookshop, and his heart rate had dropped back down to a steady seventy beats per minute.

His dalliance had also served to satisfy him that the bookshop had nothing to do with the teen-wannabe-witches they'd tracked down on their arrival in Nusquam. His doubts about the place the kids had found the grimoire had been one of the reasons Sam had wanted to stay a bit longer, when Dean had argued this hunt was done.

In the years since Castiel brought his wall tumbling down, Sam had been finding it harder and harder to hold onto the high passions he'd previously used to define himself. His anger and rage had become muted in the face of too many deaths, and ghosts, and all the unwelcome presences sharing his head-space. He was so fucking tired, worn down by intermittent memories of two hundred years in the Cage, and not helped by having a brother-turned-demon attempting to brain him with a hammer. All of which tended to give a man perspective about where best to expend his energy.

Night came early this deep into October and this far north in Montana – which as Dean had plaintively pointed out was _nearly in fucking Canada, Sammy_. As if Canada was a snow-covered wasteland, a nightmare worse than Purgatory, or worse, somewhere without a Biggersons.

Sam had turned up the collar on his jacket against the chill of the rain, and had hurried back to the motel.

The tenderly burnished Impala had been in the parking lot but there'd been no sign of Dean, so Sam had taken the opportunity to slip out of his wet clothes and have a shower. This motel might have been average in every other way, but it boasted the best power-showers they'd encountered outside of the Bunker in a very long time. He'd started to wonder if it ever stopped raining in this county – the skies had been steadily emptying ever since they'd arrived two days ago – so a hot shower was perfect.

Feeling warm and relaxed, and determined not to think about what Dean might be doing right now, he'd been crossing the room towards the bed to get dressed when he'd encountered the invisible wall. Head first. It had been a painful surprise.

Surprise had quickly turned to complete puzzlement as he'd discovered that the invisible wall wasn't singular but in fact a seamless cube, and that he was trapped inside it. When he'd turned his head just so, he'd made out occult markings that defined the otherwise transparent walls of this box, and those symbols had led him to think of this as some sort of elaborate, man-sized hex box. Whether it had been created by something human or inhuman, he had no idea. In other circumstances he would have been fascinated by this phenomenon, as it was something he'd never heard of before. Even Bobby would have been flummoxed…

Sam thoughts had automatically shied away from the ache of that loss, which still lodged deep in his heart.

He'd examined every inch of the prison several times over, and found nothing to indicate the slightest flaw or weakness for him to exploit. It was hard to maintain the right level of battle-readiness when you went from chilled-out to chilly, half naked and tired.

_Shit, I wish I'd gotten to the bed before this happened_, he'd thought.

A damp towel wasn't much of a weapon against anything natural let alone supernatural, and he'd wished, firstly, for at least his jeans, and secondly, for a few of the weapons stashed in his duffle, which was sitting tantalizingly close, yet so totally out of his reach, on the candlewick coverlet on his bed.

Muscles tense and every sense on high alert, Sam had waited for the other shoe to drop and the creature that had captured him to reveal itself.

But nothing happened. And nothing happened for a wearisome long time.

The frustration and boredom was almost worse than any confrontation with the monster responsible for his predicament.

Surely Dean would come back soon?

They could pool their resources and try and find a way out of this. Dean could maybe look a few things up on Sam's laptop: see if together they could identify any of these symbols, because Sam was making no progress on his own, bereft of his normal references.

Sam glanced at the clock on the wall outside his prison and rubbed his tired eyes. 8:10.

Hold up there…Surely it had been close to that time when he last looked?

Well, crap. It looked like the clock had stopped.

Sam had no way of knowing if that was related to his current situation. He couldn't remember the last time he'd checked it since getting back from the bookshop, but he thought it had been about 7:30 when he'd gone into the shower. If that was right, then the clock must have stopped very shortly after he'd stepped into this strange trap.

A coincidence? All Sam could hear in his head was every hunter he'd ever known saying 'ain't no such thing as coincidence'. So that would be a No, then. That left two possibilities.

First possibility - time was frozen outside the trap, but still moving for him, inside.

Second, and possibly more terrifying possibility - what he was seeing through the walls of this cage was not what was actually there.

Sam couldn't decide which option was more disturbing; or if either theory helped him to work out what creature had the power to do this, and how to put it right.

Having gone round the box several times with the same result every time, Sam leant his back against the invisible wall and slid himself down to sit, long legs awkwardly crossed. He stared through the barrier at the pale green and yellow patterned wallpaper of the motel room, and tried to think. Something must have caused this trap to be sprung, and there had to be a way of getting out of here.

There had to be.

* * *

_Who knows how long I've been awake now  
The shadows on my wall don't sleep  
They keep calling me  
Beckoning_

Sam was so tired, but he was too wired to sleep. He had no idea how long he'd been awake, let alone how long he'd been sitting here, trapped. He'd run over everything that they'd done since they arrived and come up with precisely nothing of use.

After seeing the two guilty kids safely home, they had worked through the previous night, cleaning up the mess the amateur witches had left behind. Neither of them was great at pulling the all-nighters anymore: too old, too worn down, too jaded.

Sam couldn't remember anything significant, except he'd been feeling exhausted, and Dean hadn't looked much better, for all that he kept saying he was fine. Of course. He was a Winchester and they were always fine.

So they'd yelled, and said stuff, each of them always knowing where to inflict the smallest cuts that hurt the most, and Sam had walked out before fists started flying because he was afraid he'd see a darkness in Dean's eyes he never wanted to see again, even though he knew his brother was back, and the demon part of Dean had been banished.

He closed his eyes. Just thinking about all the reasons he had to be tired made him even more weary. His burning eyes welcomed the dark.

Gradually, he became aware that he was no longer cold. Warmth seeped through the muscles of his back, melting the tension there. A gentle hand caressed his cheek and moved up to comb through his hair. The gesture wafted a subtle scent into his face, something fragile and flowery he couldn't quite place – lily of the valley, perhaps? He'd never been that good at identifying perfumes. Jess had found it amusing, laughing when he'd bought her the wrong brand of expensive scent for her birthday…

Should he take a peek? Perhaps he should be worried about this mysterious person who seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. But part of him rebelled against being sensible. He didn't want to be wary, suspicious. He wanted to hold onto this moment of peace, just this once.

In spite of his reluctance, Sam looked up to find himself inside a curtain of gold.

"Hey, baby," Mary said, and smiled.

Sam's reaction was visceral, involuntary, instant. His eyes filled with tears.

"Mom," he whispered. The wave of emotion that swept over him took him by surprise. It seemed this wasn't something you ever got blasé about then. Sam had never known their mother in real life, so any moment with her – whether it was a vision, ghost or past self – was precious.

"Am I…am I dead?" He was almost hopeful.

"No, I'm sorry, my darling, this isn't Heaven. It's not your time."

Sam's heart didn't want this moment to end, but his head was screaming at him to beware. Last time he'd seen his mom like this, she'd been the fevered creation of demon blood withdrawal, and nothing good had come of it. He sat up and wernched himself out of her warm embrace. The absence of her body heat felt colder than it should.

"What are you and how did you get in here?"

Mary looked at him with compassion. "You know what I am, Sam. I came here to help you because you needed me. I will always come when you call."

Sam clasped both hands to his head, tugging at his hair. "I'm dreaming, aren't I? Damn it. Is none of this real?"

"You aren't dreaming," Mary said. Against all his instincts, Sam allowed her to take one of his hands in hers. "I'm really here with you. I will stay as long as you want me to."

Sam looked around with a vague hope in his heart, but the net of symbols etched on the walls of his prison were still visible, so he had to assume the walls themselves were intact. Then he looked out farther, beyond the boundaries of the cage and gasped in shock. Outside, the motel room had completely disappeared, and in its place was a bleak desert landscape. Frost shattered rocks formed a pixelated horizon, stone blocks fashioned into pyramid-stepped hills that reminded him of the Badlands of South Dakota. He half expected to see Bobby come striding out of the shadows, hunting rifle resting on one shoulder with a younger version of Dean and Sam tagging along behind, like they'd done so many times years ago, when Dad had left them in Sioux Falls, saying they were too young to face monsters.

His brain worked furiously but came up with nothing that made sense. His mom was here, but she was dead and he (apparently) wasn't. This wasn't Heaven, but neither was it Hell, or Purgatory. He'd been to all of them, after all, and knew enough to recognize that this wasn't the same. The box seemed to be warded, so it shouldn't have been possible for anything or anyone to get _in_ when it wasn't possible for Sam to get _out_. Which raised the obvious question he should have asked the moment he'd opened his eyes.

"How did you get in here?" he said, but Mary just shook her head.

"You and Dean hold the key, Sammy," she said. Her smile was still there, but now it seemed fixed and sad.

Frustration overtook him and Sam turned away. He stood up and stalked over to the far edge of his cage to stare out at the pale silver quartz sands.

"We hold the key? What does that even mean?" he demanded, but when he turned round, the cage was empty.

Mary was gone and he was alone again.

* * *

Time was passing. It must be. That law was immutable, wasn't it? Sam's head ached and he was a little dizzy. A while ago he'd felt hungry, but he seemed to have moved past that stage. Now he just felt hollow. He thought he might be dehydrated.

The silence was broken by a slow handclap.

"Give that man a gold star! Well done, Sammy. I knew there was a good reason you were my favorite. You figured it out. After twenty-four hours imprisoned without food or water, of course you're dehydrated. Now for the big prize. How long can a man go without water?"

"Three, maybe four days, but…" Sam rubbed at dry eyes, but Azazel's toothy grin never faded. Why was he talking to a hallucination anyway? You'd have thought that all those months living with Lucifer inside his head would have taught him better. He looked over Azazel's shoulder then blinked. The once silver desert was now washed blood-red with the light of the setting sun. The distant blocky hills were obscured by a new, sparse forest, bare branches dark against the skyline.

Ignoring the demonic figment of his imagination, Sam moved closer to the nearest wall to squint through the faint symbols at the landscape beyond. From this distance, the trees looked strangely like bones - the curved sweep of some ancient creature's ribs, perhaps. To the south the hills could be a head, to the north lay a dark range that could be the legs. The sun was caught in the center of the rib-cage; a glowing heart. As he watched, a murmur of crows rose up from the stark silhouette like black confetti scattered into the sky, and he realized that whatever the birds had been roosting on – whether trees or bones, it didn't matter – they were dissolving.

Sam was right up to the wall now, as if something was drawing him closer. As if there was something important he was missing about this view outside. Then, just as his nose was practically pressed up against the glassy surface, the southern hill that looked like a head _moved_, turning slowly towards him.

In the light of the dying sun, Dean's eyes glimmered gold and green as he stared right at Sam.

Sam stumbled backwards in shock. Dean's mouth moved but no sound reached Sam. Instead, he could see the shape of the word Dean's lips formed; _Sam_.

Of course.

It was always Sam.

Trembling and helpless, Sam could only watch as Dean's torso disintegrated into the cloud of black birds that wheeled on the wind. The reflected light faded in his brother's eyes, in a grim accompaniment to the onset of twilight. Dean's heart had set, leaving behind it streaks of blood across the sky.

Sam huddled in a corner of the empty box, hugging his knees and trying not to think.

* * *

_The boy child is locked in the fisherman's yard  
There's a bloodless moon where the ocean died  
A shoal of night stars hang fire in the nets  
And the chaos of cages where the crayfish lie…_

Sam opened his eyes with a start at the sound of childish whispering.

Great, now he was hearing voices…and voices that were unfamiliar, too. He'd never heard children in his dreams or hallucinations before, not that he remembered anyhow. The thought trailed off into nothingness as he took in his surroundings. Slowly he stood up.

Everything had changed again.

The yellow lamp-lit motel room had not returned, and the macabre twilit Dean-desert scene had also gone. In their place was a midnight-blue arc of night. Below the night-sky a moonlit sea stretched as far as Sam could see in every direction. On the wake of the adrenaline surge, Sam rose to his feet and lurched forward only to hit the same obstacle as before. He took a step back, looked down and wished he hadn't.

"Holy shit."

The sea was literally all around him. Waves even lapped at the underside of the floor that he couldn't see, an inch or so beneath his pale bare feet. That and the wall he'd just banged into meant his prison was still intact - the one thing that hadn't changed.

He reached out. Sure enough, his fingertips brushed against the now-familiar glass-like surface and he sighed in frustration. Beyond the confines of the trap, the night was full of stars, forming patterns Sam didn't recognize, a net of light millions years old. Half of the universe he saw was already dead and gone, but the light lived on to touch his retinas with their memory.

A massive shadow moved across the sky, creating negative space and obliterating the stars one by one. Sam clenched his fists, heartbeat ratcheting dangerously high before the darkness resolved into something smaller, less menacing, and recognizably human. As the figure drew closer, Sam recognized the familiar silhouette. He felt a surge of relief.

"Dean!"

* * *

_Who knows what's right; the lines keep getting thinner  
My age has never made me wise  
But I keep pushing on and on and on and on_

Dean wasn't sure how long he'd been out. When he opened his eyes, nothing much had changed, except Sam was now sitting down, Indian style, which made the towel still clinging round Sam's narrow hips look like a Yogi's loin cloth. Dean half expected to hear some Om chanting going on, but Sam's mouth was closed. Besides, Dean was pretty sure no sounds were getting through that invisible barrier between them. Which kind of spoiled any meager fun that he might have found in this situation.

Dean sat up, touching his forehead gingerly; exploring the nice, tender duck egg he'd gotten from whacking the metal radiator. His fingers came away sticky with half-dried blood.

Looked like he'd lucked out with just a small cut and it was already congealing. Awesome. He giggled, then clapped a clumsy hand over his mouth. Oops. The blow must have left him a bit muzzy-headed, but not so much that he couldn't enjoy a moment of amusement at Sam the Yogi. Especially as there didn't seem to any immediate threat to either of their lives right now. He even briefly considered getting out his phone to take a quick picture as future teasing material.

"Huh. Your phone, stupid!" He berated himself, scrabbling in his still rain-soaked jacked pocket for his cell.

He had his finger poised over his insubstantial contact list before it hit him like a fist to the solar plexus: who was he going to call?

There was no help out there for John Winchester's boys. How the hell could he have forgotten that, even for a second?

Maybe that blow to the head had done more damage than he'd thought.

He could ring Jody, he supposed, but she had no experience that could help in this situation. Hell, _he_ had no experience of this particular weirdness either, come to that. He'd never seen or heard of anything like this before. Garth might have known where to look, but he was off playing happy families with his werewolf pack and out of the game. He could call Cas, but his friend had enough on his plate dealing with his borrowed grace issues. Besides, the feathered freak had looked almost happy the last time Dean had seen him, hanging out with the over-serious Hannah. The two of them were kind of sweet, and Dean would hate to fuck that up. Fucking things up was his speciality, of course.

Speaking of fuck-ups…he hovered for a second over Crowley's name. If anyone left alive knew more about witchcraft than the King of Hell, Dean would eat Sam's towel. Only the memory of Crowley's smug smile while he watched Dean killing Abaddon's henchmen, and the knowledge that Crowley had set him up, prevented him from tapping the call button.

Fuck that. He wasn't that desperate – yet.

He scrutinized Sam's box again in the vague hope that he had overlooked something. It was disappointingly bare. Then he noticed Sam getting to his feet, and staring right at him. He shoved his cell back into his pocket and stood up. He swayed a little, but the dizziness soon passed and he walked forward.

"Sammy?" he said, approaching the cage with caution. He didn't want to get electrocuted, or trigger whatever it was that had thrown him across the room again, but his excitement mounted as it became clear Sam finally _saw_ him. The hopeful expression on Sam's face was twin to his own. Anyhow, it wasn't in Dean to play it safe when his little brother needed him. Like the moment when two magnets are turned so their polarity is aligned, Sam was an irresistible force, drawing him in.

He felt a little foolish walking forward with his arms outstretched like a freaking zombie, but hey – invisible barrier here. He'd look even more stupid bashing into it with his nose. His head was already aching enough without adding an accidental collision to his injuries.

The cut was bleeding again. A thread of blood tickled, irritating as it ran down the side of his nose and he wiped it away impatiently.

He flinched slightly when his fingertips hit the wall, but the anticipated adverse reaction fortunately never came. Tentatively he flattened his palms and watched as Sam mirrored his actions from inside the cage. Nothing happened – no flashing, glowing symbols, no electric shocks, no force flinging him back. His look of relief matched Sam's, which made Dean wonder what had happened on Sam's side of the fence after their previous encounter, while he'd been preoccupied with flying across the room.

The surface was so smooth and cool Dean couldn't resist leaning forward to rest his forehead against it, soothing the ache left over from his previous encounter with Sam's prison. It only seemed fair – take a little, give a little...

His gaze flashed up, startled, when Sam bent forward to do the same. Palm to palm, forehead to forehead, their mimicked posture was strangely intimate and should have made Dean thoroughly uncomfortable. Somehow, it didn't. He stared into Sam's eyes, absently noting the variety of colors that kaleidoscoped in his brother's irises. How had he never noticed before that Sam's eyes weren't simply green, or brown, or blue, but an eclectic mixture of all three, with a dash of something lion-tawny thrown in?

Sam stared back, unwavering, challenging. He spoke – just one word, but miraculously, unbelievably, Dean heard him. It was all Dean needed to focus.

"Dean." Sam said.

Dean heard Sam through the blood rushing in his ears even as his heart lurched and started to race. Heard him through the thickness of whatever the material was that separated them. He heard Sam _inside_ his head. As if looking each other in the eye had given Sam access to Dean in a way that hadn't existed before – as if his eyes were indeed windows to the soul.

Dean was aware of the sound of his own breathing: too fast and too loud and so fucking petrified. He couldn't move away, though everything in him, every fiber of his body was crying out for flight. He was frozen in place, hands pressed against his brother's hands, forehead to forehead, stripped bare by Sam's scrutiny.

Neither of them moved. Dean didn't even want to blink. It felt as though something essential, something precious, might break if they severed this fragile connection. As if _Dean_ might break.

* * *

_These are the souls of broken factories  
The subject slaves of the broken crown  
The dead accounting of old guilty promises  
These are the souls of the broken town_

Sam watched Dean approach out of the night. Dean stared at Sam as if he'd never seen his brother before. Any other time, Sam would have teased Dean about the way he walked, arms held out before him like an escapee from a Romero movie, but the fact that a zombie was a bit too close to the effect the Mark had on Dean took the humor out of any undead jokes. And the expression on Dean's face – half trepidation, half hope – took away the urge to do anything but move closer. Sam stood up and stepped forward, saying Dean's name – as if now his brother was here everything would be all right – forgetting there was an impenetrable barrier in between them. He'd been too caught up in the fact that Dean was here, and looking straight at him with eyes that were tired, but clear and green.

Now Dean was closer, Sam noted with a touch of anxiety the new cut on Dean's forehead, the purplish bruising and his pallor. His relief at seeing Dean's eyes weren't black was tempered with worry as he watched their focus wandering around haphazardly, with all the signs of a concussion. What the hell had happened? Dean had been fine when Sam had left him earlier.

Sam was reminded that he was still trapped when Dean halted and pressed both hands up against the wall of his prison. Sam watched Dean's palms whiten, as if pressed up against glass. He wished it was mere glass between them, because then one of them might have stood some chance of smashing it.

Knowing breaking the barrier was impossible, all Sam could do was follow Dean's lead. He mimicked Dean's posture, resting his palms against the cool surface. Behind Dean's head, the stars wheeled in the sky trailing light, as if Sam was caught in a time-lapse. It was making him dizzy, so he fixed his gaze on Dean – his life-line, his anchor, his frighteningly infuriating big brother. All brittle edges, sharp as a broken mirror and still scarred with a mark that would sweep him back into Hell if Sam couldn't find a way to stop it.

Up close and unwilling to break contact, Sam didn't flinch when his palms started to sting, as if the barrier had transformed from smooth ice into a million tiny thorns snagging his flesh. Sam could feel his hands start to bleed but he kept his gaze fixed on Dean's. In his peripheral vision his blood moved out against the surface of the barrier. Spreading from where both their hands touched the wall, the thin threads formed new patterns and symbols as they went.

Although Sam refused to turn his head to watch, he was intimately aware of the way the threads twined round and out and through the symbols etched into the cage until the entire surface of his prison was an intricate web of red. It was as if the blood was still part of him, but in that case, why was it seemingly set on locking Sam in and keeping Dean out? It made no sense.

Sam pressed harder against the bloody barrier, his chest tight. Each breath was heavy with the unbearable weight of caring. After everything – the Apocalypse, Lucifer, angel and Leviathan plots to take over the world, demon bids to do Hell knew what, Cain and his Mark – it all came down to this.

The two of them, broken and mended and bonded beyond any severance, even their own.

Sam hated it and loved it and couldn't live without it.

Couldn't live without Dean.

With that thought, the cage melted away as if it had never existed. Sam didn't even notice.

* * *

Sam was in Dean's head, but it was okay, because Sam had always been there, even when he was dead, or missing, or in Hell or Stanford - which had been another kind of Hell as far as Dean was concerned.

So Dean wasn't freaked out now. In fact he was comforted to have Sam this close. It gave him the tiniest sliver of hope, even though he knew he was beyond salvation. Then the thought struck him that being this close to Sam would contaminate his brother. After all, Dean was corruption – unclean and unworthy.

He tried to pull away.

_Stop that_, Sam admonished. _Don't shut me out._

_I just want to do one thing right._

_This _is_ right, Dean. This is the only thing that is right._

The barrier was warm against his skin and then he was sinking into Sam, their fingers intertwining, their foreheads touching. There was nothing between them but skin and air and cloth. Sam's hands were sticky wet and Dean could smell the sharpness of iron on the breath they shared.

It was frighteningly easy to let go of himself while clinging onto Sam. Since Sam had cured the demon in him, Dean had been unanchored, floating on a deceptively calm sea with not even the slightest breeze to push him one way or another. He'd tried throwing himself into cases, into sex with random strangers, into constant movement – seeking distraction from all the echoing, empty space inside him, trying to ignore the constant nagging hunger that emanated from the Mark on his arm. Nothing had worked.

This was different. This was right.

He wasn't surprised, somehow. He and Sam, they'd always been a case apart. Maybe it was time to accept that, to stop fighting. Maybe this was the only thing that could save him.

He allowed Sam to pull him in closer. Not even blushing at the fact Sam was nearly naked.

"The Mark, whatever it's doing to you, whatever it takes. We'll figure it out, Dean."

"Yeah. Okay."

Dean closed his eyes but the connection didn't break. Sam's hands were hot; they burned Dean through his clothes and he felt truly alive for the first time since Metatron had sheathed that blade deep in his chest. Sam's fingers roamed over Dean's face and the scent of iron intensified as Sam smeared his own blood over Dean's exposed skin. Dean's legs began to tremble.

"Sam," he croaked. "Sammy."

Sam didn't stop touching him, as if Sam understood it was only the warmth of his hands and the stickiness of his blood that could hold Dean together. Sam's fingers were everywhere, undoing belt and zipper and buttons and Dean. Undoing Dean. He didn't think about the paradox of that, of being held together and taken apart at the same time, because he wasn't thinking about anything at all except the need to get closer to Sam. He always needed to be close to Sam, but now it was as if Sam was breathing for him. Sam's heart was beating for his and if Sam stopped, Dean would too.

Naked, there was nothing between them now but skin. Even that was too much of a barrier.

Dean let Sam open him up and step inside.

* * *

Everything was shining. Dean's skin was rough as sandpaper, so Sam's hands kept bleeding until the sea turned red but it didn't matter.

It didn't matter.

* * *

_I'll tell you a story_

_About Jack a Nory;_

_And now my story's begun…_

This is where we must leave Sam and Dean, with nothing and everything resolved.

What was it that broke down Sam's prison walls?

Those fearsome twins: love and need.

When you've waded through the kind of sewers that the Winchesters have, some shit is bound to stick. Too crude? Very well. Let me phrase it another way. Although those boys lived practically all their lives in each other's pockets, there are walls aplenty between them. Dean went to Hell, then Purgatory. He's been a demon and presently he carries the burden of history's oldest crime. Sam's been addicted to demon blood, spent two hundred years in Hell's Cage, was the vessel for two angels and still contains a drop of Lucifer's Grace.

Sometimes the cages with the strongest walls are those we build for ourselves. Sometimes, it's only when we realize the barriers exist that we can finally break them down.

Do they live happily ever after? Well, I'm afraid I can't say, because this was all the tale I was given to tell. I can tell you that the Winchesters' story isn't done. Their road is a long one, a dark one, a complex one, and it may never end.

…_I'll tell you another_

_Of Jack and his brother,_

_And now my story is done._

* * *

A/N - I'll just mention the art again because, seriously, chomaisky created some amazing and beautiful pictures that have to be seen. On Live Journal here (replace dot with . and take out the spaces...) amberdreams dot livejournal dot com / 293801 dot html


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